AMD’s Revolutionary Mantle

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AMD’s Mantle is a groundbreaking graphics API that promises to transform the world of game development to help bring better, faster games to the PC. Read on to discover how AMD is working with the game development community to revolutionize the PC gaming experience.

Overview

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The number of games supporting Mantle continues to grow, and there are some exciting new titles from EA that are joining that list.

“Dragon Age™: Inquisition” is the newest addition to an already popular series. The visual impact of this fantasy role-playing game is off the charts. “Plants vs. Zombies™: Garden Warfare” is a multiplayer frenzy that’s now available on PC after enjoying huge success on the Microsoft® Xbox. Last but certainly not least is “Battlefield™ Hardline,” the second Battlefield title to benefit from Mantle support, and one undoubtedly impressive first- person shooter.

Click the Games tab to see what other Mantle-enabled games are available, or continue reading below to learn more about this exciting, game-accelerating technology.

Why we developed Mantle

From a game developer’s point of view, creating games for the PC has never been especially efficient. With so many combinations of hardware possible in a PC, it’s not practical to create specialized programming for every possible configuration. What they do instead is write simplified code that gets translated on-the-fly into something the computer can work with.

Just as when two people communicate through a translator, this works, but it isn’t efficient. And it’s the CPU that has to do all this extra work, translating and queuing data for the graphics card to process. PCs are meant to be the ultimate gaming platform — they have the power — but all this translation slows things down, and game developers approached AMD asking for something better.

What Mantle does

Mantle is the harmony of three essential ingredients:

A driver within the AMD Catalyst™ software suite that lets applications speak directly to the Graphics Core Next architecture;

A GPU or APU enabled with the Graphics Core Next architecture;

An application or game written to take advantage of Mantle.

Mantle reduces the CPU’s workload by giving developers a way to talk to the GPU directly with much less translation. With less work for the CPU to do, programmers can squeeze much more performance from a system, delivering the greatest benefits in gaming systems where the CPU can be the bottleneck.

What it means for gamers

Now that Mantle has freed up some extra CPU capacity, we expect Mantle will lead to better games, and more of them, since Mantle makes game development easier.

That’s not all Mantle will do for gamers. By shifting work to the GPU, a mid-range or older CPU isn’t the same handicap it was before. With Mantle, the GPU becomes the critical part of the system, and GPU upgrades will have a bigger impact than before.

Games

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Battlefield™ Hardline

Battlefield Hardline brings the enormously successful Battlefield series to the streets of Miami. Battle crooks and corrupt cops in a variety of new game modes as you strive to bring peace to the sun-soaked streets.

Dragon Age™: Inquisition

Lead a team of heroes on a perilous journey through a living, open world. Discover the dramatic world of Thedas, from war-torn plains to jagged coasts, in the upcoming action RPG from BioWare, the creators of Mass Effect™.

Plants vs. Zombies™ Garden Warfare

Shooters just got weird. Plants vs. Zombies is digging into the trenches with an explosive new action experience. Blast zombies, plants and new characters across a mine-blowing PvZ world. Take on Co-op and Multiplayer action with your friends and sow the​​ seeds of victory!

Civilization®: Beyond Earth™

The newest, hotly anticipated title in a long-running franchise, “Civilization®: Beyond Earth,™” will leverage Mantle technology to deliver breathtaking graphics and performance.

Battlefield 4 by EA/DICE

The first title to boast Mantle support, Battlefield 4 unlocks new levels of performance for PC gamers, with stunning graphics to match.

Downloads

Mantle API Programming Guide Copy: This 450-page programming guide and API reference provides developers with a detailed look at the capabilities and architecture of the Mantle graphics API.​

Engines

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Panta-Rhei Engine

A new collaboration to enhance the rendering pipeline of the Panta-Rhei engine, Mantle will enable outstanding benefits and impressive performance for gamers and developers alike in upcoming titles developed and published by Capcom.​​​​

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Frostbite 3 Engine by DICE

Frostbite empowers game creators around the world to shape the future of gaming. Enabled with AMD’s Mantle graphics API for transparent and fine-grained graphics development, reduced CPU overhead and powerful multi-core CPU parallelism.

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Asura Engine by Rebellion Games

A versatile, multi-platform game engine refined over the course of 14 years. Now enabled with the Mantle graphics API for cutting-edge control of the graphics pipeline for superior CPU/GPU performance and minimal graphics API overhead.

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CRYENGINE® by Crytek

The potent combination of Mantle and CRYENGINE will empower game developers to accelerate PC development and extract unprecedented gaming performance.

Nitrous game engine by Oxide

Still in the development stages, the Nitrous game engine by Oxide Games is built to take advantage of Mantle’s performance advantage. Their
Star Swarm demo illustrates the tremendous capacity of a Mantle-optimized game engine.